Atonement
by Golden-Heart the 2nd
Summary: A fic exploring the psychology into Korra's mind as she struggles with the guilt of nearly killing Tarrlok and facing no repercussions or censure for it and how it has affected her, years later, as she struggles with the depression from her comprehension that sinks in once she realises what she has done. Rated T


_This fic was written via another analysis that took place in the Korrlok chat between me and mrchibs, since it was Day 6 of Korrlok Week and we were discussing how Korra's actions in 'When Extremes Meet" during her fight with Tarrlok and how, in her rage, she comes dangerously close to killing Tarrlok (which forces him to bloodbend her out of self-defence to save himself) and we were pondering (since the show never thought to delve into them. Screw you again, Bryke *clenches fist* ) what the potential repercussions of it might have been for her, psychologically-wise. Thus this story was written. And the genre is flangst again, how surprising I know. It seems this is my preferred genre for any and all of my creative writing. Oops. O_o By the way, zenaga I hope you like this… sorry for offending you :/ Also, I just realised another fitting title for this story would be "Love Redeems" so it's perfect to read it in that context. ;D But then again, isn't Love Redeems one of the best tropes there is? :D_

She awakens to find her face wet with tears. A horrible dream has been singing its way into her sleep every night, flustering her so much that she stirs restlessly, unknowingly distraught. The dreams are startling visions she uncovers – visions she doesn't want to remember because the pain sears her heart so much.

She shakes her head as a dark memory wraps itself around her mind – that of her intense battle with Councilman Tarrlok. She flinches inwardly as the memory surfaces into her mind. Her vision clarifies that she has left his defenceless, unable to bend water at her to keep her at bay. She is aware of the fright shining in his eyes and revels in it as she runs towards him, her palms alight with flames of fire.

Memory or dream? In this moment she can't distinguish the sensations of that incident in the past from the images that muddle her head, confusing her. She is afraid to face it, the knowledge of what she nearly did condemns her – leaves her burning all over with embarrassment and remorse in a miasma of pain.

She feels the teardrop clinging to her eyelash and numbly is aware of her hand moving to brush it away.

_I nearly killed him, _the words echo through her brain, making her groan aloud. She glances aside at her husband, grateful that her sound was so low he doesn't even rustle the sheets. Her lower lip quivers as she sits up, her gaze focussing on the window, where the light outside is beginning to turn the sky pastel blue in preparation for the dawn. _I didn't just nearly kill him; _she corrects herself sternly, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. _I was about to __kill__ him. I was __going__ to kill him._

A shudder ripples through her body and a small moan emerges from her mouth, but it is still too low to awaken her partner sleeping next to her.

She wonders why it is only now she is forcing herself to deal with the mistakes of the past. Mistakes that she was never called out on originally, mistakes that were never addressed, under the assumption that she was "the Avatar" and thus, even as a young teen, could really do no wrong. It was true, Tarrlok had bloodbent her that night she'd confronted him, but for one reason only: she had left him no choice. Her palms burning with hot flames, she had rushed over at him as he lay prostrate on his back on the council floor. She remembers the adrenaline pumping through her as she lifts her arms to strike him – but then her body is jerked out of her grip, her fire extinguished. She recalls her surprise at her body twisted out of her grip, how her eyes widen with fear at the sight of Tarrlok standing before her, in the pride of his power. She is too astonished by the fact that her body is in thrall, leaving her nowhere to run or to use her fire on the man – on his face – than to do anything else than gasp,

"Tarrlok… you're a bloodbender?"

She clenches her teeth as Tarrlok narrows his eyes at her, his voice a husky growl as he says,

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me."

Those words are the last ones she hears before he throws her against a wall, leaving her breathless.

Korra gasps again, rubbing her hands on both sides of her arms anxiously as the vividness of the memory (or is it a dream?) vanishes before her eyes. She feels shivers racing through her body again. Tears pool in her eyes as she glances at the man lying beside her. She reaches over to rub his back tenderly.

She places her head so that it is resting on his chest, her gaze drawn to the window again. She watches as the snow outside is painted in hues of pastel blue and pinks and gold as the sun emerges to erase the shadows of night.

Mistakes left unaddressed throughout the years plague her with so much guilt that she can't appreciate the beauty of the sunrise. The guilt seeps into her bones, making them leaden and heavy. It is a heavy burden to carry, and she wonders how she has been able to do it for so long, and manage the guilt – and the depression that comes with it – so well that no one close to her notices, with one possible exception.

However, she is still flustered and her cheeks burn with anger as she realises no one (not even her mentor, Tenzin, called her out on what she had almost done) thought it fitting to confront her on her personal issues: such as hotheadedness making her lose her mind momentarily so that she nearly set afire the face of a man who was only wanting to be a friend to her and desirous of her help and support for his propositions. And she had failed him utterly.

Korra tries to ignore the guilty depression swamping her, but it refuses to leave. It clings to her like a wolf-bat with sharp claws that is holding onto her heart and rebuffing any attempts to shake it off.

The memory of her encounter with Tarrlok rises again in her mind to pierce at her heart with all the sharpness of a sword thrusting its way into her as she finds herself replaying the moment over again in her mind – she was running at him, palms afire, definitely going to aim them at him, injuring his face badly, or worse, in her overwrought emotional state, going to _kill_ him.

A shudder thrums through her body again as she glances down at the man sleeping next to her, his long hair covering his face. Her heart begins to pound again she takes herself back into that charge she was making at the councilman.

_Did you feel any guilt for doing that at all? _A small voice creeps up into her mind like a snake, further burying her in her depression. _Did you even realise what you did, in that moment, to him? Oh, I remember now. You hide it carefully and made it a secret, so that no one who could have confronted you about it knew… so it was too late._

Korra lets a dry sob emerge from her mouth as she lays her head onto the chest of her sleeping partner, submerging her face underneath the sea of hair that was strewn out on the man's back she was resting on. His back arches as he turns over to his left side so that he's facing her and she moves backward slightly as he raises his head to look at her, his hair mussy, hanging down on his shoulders and his eyes bleary with sleep,

"Korra?" He murmurs, reaching out to grasp her hand in his. "Are you all right?"

She takes a deep breath, placing his hand onto her cheek so that he can feel the tears drying into salt on her cheeks,

"No," She admits, and the confession takes all of the breath out of her. She meets the deep blue eyes of the man she calls her husband sorrowfully. "I've been living with too many regrets and guilt… I don't deserve forgiveness for what I nearly did to you… I've lived with my own hidden guilt about it for so long… I was never called out on it by anyone, even elders I respected like Tenzin… which only made it worse for me…"

Her husband's deep blue eyes light up at her statement, and she can see his internal processes formulating a response. He is the only person to even sense the depression she carries at times, as she lets no one else know about it, and even in the past, not long after the incidents with the bloodbending and her reaction to the boat explosion and later finding the councilman again on the beach, barely alive, she conceals her guilty depression in hopes that no one will know… but it only exacerbates her situation.

"Korra," He says again, murmuring her name like a caress. The scars on the right side of his face emerge sharply into the awakening ripples of light streaming through the window, and the sight clenches at her heart.

_This happened to him because of me, _her inner voice accuses. _You drove him to it. It's only by the providence of the spirits and the intervention of your past life that he even survived._

"You need to hear me out on this…"

"I haven't atoned for anything!" Korra explodes, feeling a scowl settle on her face. She draws the man nearer to her, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks again. He reaches up his hand and gently rubs them away from her eyes as she continues to sob, finally able to have the release of tears from the torment she's undergone for many years. "I still can't even comprehend how and why you're able to love me."

Her husband reaches forward; cradling her head delicately in his hands and guides her so that she's resting her face on his massive chest. She can hear the drumbeat of his heartbeat, and the sound is soothing to hear. For a moment, she marginally is able to relax… but the demons still haunt her.

"I haven't made atonement for anything," Korra's voice breaks. "I never did, and it's been biting at me now… and has been for years. No one ever confronted me about how close I came and how much damage I did to you because I was thinking only of myself. I have so many regrets from that moment, I was so wrong there."

"But so was I," her husband protests, stroking her long tresses gently with his scarred hand. She leans into him, glad for his presence as her tears continue to flow. "I should never have bloodbent you in the first place."

"But I was going to _kill_ you!" Korra replies, sitting up hastily, the memory of the night vividly replaying itself over again in her mind, and she sees, in her mind's eye, blood and fire mingling together in a grotesque tapestry. "I know I would have… I would have… I was."

"It's in the past now, my sweet," her husband tries to comfort her, gracing her with a crooked half-smile.

"No, it isn't," Korra insists. She wants him to know how deeply she understands that she's failed him. "It's a fact that I've continually found myself having to face, hidden deep within myself so that no one could see…"

"_I_ saw."

"Except for you, but no one else did…" Korra went on, her words falling from her mouth in a hasty waterfall. "And this is a matter that I needed addressed in my life. But even Tenzin is too non-confrontational that he couldn't speak to me about the wrongness of my actions when I finally confessed to him what I drove you to do that night. The blame is largely mine for the whole matter, and he was silent about it. My own mentor!"

"Korra, listen to me," her husband urges, in his politician's voice that makes every head swivel to look at him and hang on his words. "You've already paid your atonement in full many times over to me… Why, without the grace of your deciding to help me after I was discovered, I wouldn't even have survived."

"That doesn't erase my guilt," Korra retorts, even as she allows his words to seep into her skin and become a part of her, something she wishes she'd done more often when she was a young and naïve girl in need of guidance – even if it came with the hard and uncomfortable truths about herself, because those truths were truths she needed if she was to grow. "You – and many others – don't know how much guilt has plagued me about what I did that night."

His scarred hand brushes through her long, flowing hair, subtly relaxing her as she leans into the flow of the rhythm of his strokes, and, after a moment, she heaves a sigh and finally speaks again, breaking the silence between the two lying in the bed, "And try as I might, I can't seem to find the atonement I need to do to make peace with myself for it."

She glances up to see her husband wearing his familiar smirk as he stares into her eyes,

"Isn't loving me enough?" He whispers in that low, sexy voice of his that she never gets tired of hearing wake her up every morning or call a greeting to her. She finds herself gazing back at him, her tears finally beginning to ease to a stop as he pulls her nearer to him so close that she can see an image of herself reflected in his blue eyes. "Korra, you decided to love me in spite of everything I did to you all those years ago… and, my sweet, put away your guilt; there is no need for it. I've paid my atonement in full as well, since I chose to forgive you, which freed me from my own guilt and my own depression. Korra, my sweet, the man you found on the shores was a broken man, but your love for me has helped put me back together… you have made your atonement with the misdeeds of the past." He pauses, and Korra clasps his hands in hers, eagerly waiting in the silence to listen as he continues. "And this is the reason why my dearest should have no guilt afflict her; she has paid it in full with her own sacrifice and love."

Korra's body sent tremors as she took in her husband's words, the truths that he said – admitting the past and the actions both had made to atone for it – still hurt her to some extent, but it was a good pain… a pain that rebuilds her from her core.

Giddiness swamps Korra and she smiles a foolish grin at her husband, his words seeping into her skin and into her mind and with every moment she feels the depression and the guilt beginning to lift out of her, never to return.

Impulsively, she leans forward, placing her lips on Tarrlok's. He responds by returning the kiss deeply as she throws her arms around him. Words, silent words, dance in the space between them – _Free, I am finally free – _as Korra sinks into her husband's, her Tarrlok's large hands, falling deeply into his embrace.


End file.
